Jun. 22, 2013

Equal rights group features fair pay icon

Attorneys showed up in force to see equal pay advocate Lilly Ledbetter and several honorees speak at Equal Rights Advocates' 39th Annual Luncheon. Ledbetter, the keynote speaker, thanked retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg for her dissenting opinion in the case Ledbetter ultimately lost but which eventually led to the first bill signed into law by President Barack Obama, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. "I had lost the battle, but with her dissent I had won the war, and I'm going to win some more wars, too," she said during the speech. In an interview, Ledbetter discussed her next battle, an update to the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would prohibit employers from punishing workers for discussing their salary information. "Our opposition says it's a lawyer's dream come true. It's not," she said. "All we want is to find out how we're paid." The organization honored Saru Jayaraman with the Champion of Justice award for her work as co-founder and co-director of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United and director of the Food Labor Research Center at UC Berkeley. Jayaraman talked about her book, "Behind the Kitchen Door," which addresses the plight of workers who depend on tips. She told the audience that tipping more wasn't a good enough solution to the problem. "The women who feed us cannot afford to feed themselves," she said. — Joshua Sebold and Laura Hautala